a very strange sort of day
by oneperfectfit
Summary: It's like Freaky Friday, except not.  The journey of discovery and understanding amongst the study group has only begun.


So you know how some days are normal and some days most definitely are not? This one, Britta reflected later, was really in between. It was in between to the extremes, like a very wide, stretchy object thing.

It started with her in the study room during a free hour. She was reading a book that had not been assigned for a class for once. There was screaming far off, but you learned to ignore that after being at Greendale for a while. Someone was always terrified of something, somewhere. And as a bonus, you could often track down the Dean by following the direction of the screams.

Except the noise was coming closer, coming towards her, and it sounded distinctly like Annie. And remembering the last time Annie yelled, which ended in nakedness, ghosts, and Jeff proving to her later that evening that he saved the stripey Beetlejuice underwear especially for her (she had been... oddly touched, actually), Britta swung her legs off of the study room table and sat up at attention.

Thirty seconds later, Troy ran into the room like he had actually seen that pen-stealing ghost.

"Britta!" Troy yelled. "Britta! You need to help me! You used to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs, right? You can help me!"

Britta blinked. Once, twice, three times. And then she asked the million-dollar question.

"Troy?" she said tentatively," why do you sound like Annie? Because I'm pretty sure 'shrooms don't do that, just helium- have you and Abed been playing with balloons again? Because you know what happened last time-"

"No! We don't do that anymore!" Troy stomped his foot, still sounding very high-pitched. "I'm not Troy!"

"Yes, you are..." Britta examined him more closely. His eyes were huge, with all the whites showing, which was kind of normal. The sheen of sweat wasn't. "Was Chang pretending to be the school nurse again? Jeff and I told you not to trust him, even if he's wearing a white doctor's coat."

"I'm Annie!" Another foot stomp. "That's why I sound like myself! I'm just in Troy's body!"

"What. The hell." Britta can't seem to stop blinking. "How did that happen, Tr- Annie! Annie? Annie. Okay. I got you. You're Annie. So, uh, how did that happen?"

Annie-as-Troy sits down heavily. "I don't know! The Dean was handing out free ice cream, and even though it's almost Christmas Troy, Abed, and I took some, and it tasted kind of like how the chemistry lab smells? And then everything went hazy for a second, and when my eyes refocused I... wasn't wearing a skirt anymore. I was Troy. And I think maybe Troy is me." She pauses, and her eyes grow wider. "Britta," Annie whispers, "I have a- a thing now. And Troy has my boobs. Ohmygod. Someone else has my boobs!"

"Annie!" Britta hisses. "Calm down! I think you need to talk to someone who might be directly involved in this. Like Troy. Tell him to keep his hands off your junk. And then talk to the Dean. If he's the cause of this, maybe he'll be the cure. And remember Halloween, when the whole party got roofied? Maybe it's something like that."

Annie bites her lips and starts chewing. "Maybe..." she says. "But then why isn't anyone else affected? Why isn't like, Jeff in you?"

Britta is dying to turn that into the joke it deserves to become, but holds off for the sake of privacy and Annie's mental state. "I haven't had any ice cream," she says instead. "And maybe it was only certain pieces of ice cream. Like in Freaky Friday? With the fortune cookies?"

"Maybe," Annie says, and somewhere in the distance, they hear a deep, manly scream.

"I think Troy's realized what's happened," Britta sighs. A few pairs of frantic footsteps are incoming towards the study room. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

A few seconds later, what is presumably Troy in Annie's body bursts in through the glass doors, followed closely by Abed and Jeff.

"Hi," Jeff says to Britta, sidling close to her. "So what's up with you?"

"Get out of my body!" Troy screeches. It doesn't sound as odd coming from Annie's body as it should.

"You get out of mine!" Annie yells back. This one, as Jeff remarks in Britta's ear, does sound odd.

Britta thinks for a moment. "Hey Annie," she says, and two heads turn towards her at once. "You know how they solved the whole body-switch thing in Freaky Friday?"

"How?" Troy asks. Britta tries to remember, cause she's pretty sure that the last time she saw that movie, she was stoned on some high-quality weed.

"They ran into each other. From opposite sides of the room. And Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis kind of... crashed back into their proper places."

"That," Jeff agrees, "is exactly what happened. I think you should try it."

As Troy and Annie jog to opposite ends of the study room, Britta turns to Jeff in mild horror. "That's not what happened in the movie, is it?"

"Well.. sort of." He scratches his chin, and she notices that he hasn't shaved for a while and is all stubble-y. "They tried it originally, and it didn't work. And then there was a journey of self-discovery and understanding. Do you think that's what will happen to Annie and Troy?"

"I don't know," Britta groans, "but if you don't shave I'm not making out with you in your car any more. Beard burn is suspicious."

"True dat," Jeff agrees, and she basically has no choice there but to roll her eyes.

In front of them, Annie and Troy fall to the floor groaning in pain. Troy seems to have his arms wrapped around, well, what used to be Annie's chest.

"My lady bits hurt," he moans. "Britta, that was a terrible idea."

"That's not what they did in the movie," Abed pipes up. "I didn't stop it from happening because of comedic value, but if you really want to get your own body back, you're going to have to undertake a journey of understanding."

Jeff nods emphatically, for once seeming to be happy letting Abed make the speech.

"And," Abed continues, "you'll have to do it without our help. Maybe if we lock you two in a room together you'll be able to work it out?"

And then Britta is struck by an insanely wonderful idea. "It's the Dean's fault," she says. "It has to be. There must have been some... consciousness-changing drug, or even magic potion, in the ice cream. You should go blame him. Go ask him for the answer."

"That might work," Abed agrees. "And if not, you can always undertake the spritual journey as your second option."

"Why not," Jeff nods, when Annie and Troy look to him for confirmation. "And you know, the Dean is always looking for plot points to add to his novel. I'm positive that he would be more than willing to offer you guys a little help."

"Yeah!" Britta does a fist bump with Jeff. It kind of fails awkwardly, and she shrugs instead. He winces and doesn't even try to hide it. "So now that this little crisis is on its way to being solved..."

"You and Jeff can go have sex in his car?" Abed suggests.

Britta's jaw drops. "Abed!"

Abed's brows crease. "Or was that supposed to be a secret?"

"Obviously," Jeff hisses between clenched teeth.

"Yeah, and how did you even know about that?" Britta asked, arms crossed and hip jutting out.

"Well," Abed steeples his fingers. "I noticed that both you and Jeff tended to be more relaxed and cheerier after certain breaks that you both would share, or when you went to eat lunch together. And in light of seeing you two kissing by the stoner tree once or twice, even though it was pretty quick I managed to extrapolate from there."

"Uh."

"Impressive," Jeff finally says. "Killed the mood, of course, but-"

Britta raises an eyebrow. "I didn't think so," she says- practically purrs.

"Ah. Well then." He shrugs, and Abed gives the both of them a thumbs-up, which, okay then.

"Good luck with your spiritual journey, you guys!" Britta calls back, as Jeff grabs her ass on the way out the door.

In the study room, Troy and Annie are charting out their journey on a piece of posterboard while Abed offers opinions culled from pop culture, because it's always good to have a plan B. And Pelton may or may not be hiding in the Introduction to Cost Accountancy classroom's janitorial closet- so there's that, too.


End file.
